Tuesday, May 23, 2006

Corporate stupidity sent me home

I had planned to work until 5:00 tonight. I left the office at 4:30. I gave up; corporate stupidity had done me in.

As a Communication Specialist, I do at least 90% of my work in Microsoft Word and PowerPoint. I store all my documents that are being developed or are legally approved in a shared drive on the company network. Our shared drive is running out of room.

Today I worked for over 5 hours on two letters that were not so much written as designed. Fully formatted with forms, information sheets, disclosures and the most carefully worded enhancement offer for our annuity clients. Lots of work, folks, and works of art, if I do say so myself.

I also worked on the updates to two financial statements that are set to go into production in one week. They are being developed but the developers realized they couldn't use some text I had written and had legally approved because our system couldn't calculate the date to go with the text. So, I had these two statements going through a rush (and I mean a mach 20 rush) legal approval.

In the midst of all this work, I went to access the statements and found that someone had DELETED ALL MY DOCUMENTS OFF THE SHARED DRIVE! People, we are talking about four years of document development! After I got my heart started again I contacted our technology desk. They said the documents were probably deleted because they needed the space for "regulatory documents". Um, people? Everything I write is legally approved and stored for NASD audit. How much more regulatory do you need?

I know they'll get my documents back. See, they did this two weeks ago, too. Apparently I didn't make myself clear last time when I said they couldn't delete my work. Tomorrow I am going to make them figure out who hit the delete key and I am going to personally visit them. Then, when they restore my files, I am changing the name of my folder to "Don't Delete These Documents if You Value Your Life". Maybe that will work.

I love working for The Big Company. But once in awhile, corporate stupidity can really put a crick in your week, you know?

Here are some comments from this post: Geekwif said... Just one of the many reasons why I hate working for big companies. I hope they are able to get back all your docs.

Shannin said... Ha!! That's why anything I cannot lose/recreate I copy to my P drive as well. I know, I know - not company policy, but when a year's worth of data gets "accidentally" deleted that's not a good thing.